Sarah McGrath Brags about Erika Krouse

Nothing worse than getting a rejection letter that brags about another writer, not you. In this note, Sarah McGrath writes: "Thank you of [sic] thinking of me for Writer, Rejected's story collection [title], which I read with great interest. I particularly like Writer, Rejected's smart, cynical sense of humor and sharp one-liners, which actually remind me of the style of a short story writer I am publishing this spring, Erika Krouse." (!)

Gawker Takes Notice

More on the faked memoir story and former Scribner editor Sarah McGrath in an article at Gawker. This time there's a link to McGrath's rejection letter on LROD:

"Judging from a 2000 rejection letter, first published by Literary Rejections On Display, McGrath assembled her stable of "high-profile" writers by keeping her expectations high; in the letter she said she was hunting for manuscripts that "blow me away." McGrath hardly softened the rejection when she mentioned, right there in the first paragraph, another, implicitly better writer of hers, Erika Krouse, who "I am publishing this spring," unlike the rejection recipient.

If nothing else, the document is a reminder of the competitive pressures that help drive some authors to start plagiarizing and making things up."

Don't get any bad ideas out there, mice. Just write your own stories.